Buying a green screen

[Vid Niesel]

What sorts of things should I be looking for? Which material is good, or which material is bad? I'm having a bit of trouble choosing one. I'm also looking for basically the cheapest solution that will work, and not break straight away.

Any and all information about green screens would be much appreciated. I unfortunately won't be able to get lots of lights for perfect lighting, so that aspect I won't have much control over for now. But any information on what to get for stands or backdrop.

I'll just be using it at home, so it doesn't need to be super rugged or anything. It can be pretty cheap for the stands.

[Cornucopia]

You are looking for:

1. Purity & consistency of color (preferably "chroma green" aka 0,177,64)
2. Consistency of light being shined upon & reflecting from it. So matte is better than gloss.
3. Seamlessness, enough to cover camera-visible area (otherwise violates #1 or #2), depends on size & distance here.
4. Distance enough from foreground to Greenscreen so foreground objects don't cast camera-visible shadows (again 1 & 2), as well as difference in lighting to both properly provide modelled lighting on foreground as well as flat, side-firing lighting for screen.
5. Possibly also presence of opposite-chroma rim lighting to optically supress green spill onto foreground.

Notice that much has to do with lights & technique and not much to do with actual screen composition tech.


Scott

[Vid Niesel]

Ok, thanks!